Twitter starts lawsuit against India government over strict internet law

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Twitter files a lawsuit in India to challenge the country’s strict internet laws. Twitter has had to take content offline several times from local authorities and according to Twitter, some of these requests infringe on freedom of expression.

Twitter wants the court in India to look into the legitimacy of government requests to take content offline. According to Reuters, Twitter having trouble getting offline of the content, because those in power in the country would abuse the strict internet laws. This would violate freedom of expression.

Twitter has had to take messages offline several times since the introduction of stricter internet legislation and also remove accounts that are in violation of the law. Twitter should have removed accounts that openly support an independent Sikh state. The platform also had to remove criticism from farmers about the government’s covid policy.

The American company has been at odds with the government in India for some time and previously refused to cooperate in taking content offline. Under pressure, Twitter eventually complied with the authorities’ demands, because otherwise the social media platform might be banned altogether.

The Indian government declined to respond to questions from Reuters. India has had to introduce the stricter rules, it says, because the fundamental rights of citizens were at stake. Not only do social media platforms have to adhere to strict rules, other internet services have also been increasingly strictly controlled by the government in India in recent years. For example, services must retain more data from their users and store it for longer. For this reason, several VPN services have already left the country.

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